Looking at current events and issues from a Christian worldview perspective...

Friday, January 06, 2017

The 3 - January 8, 2017

In this week's edition of The 3, spotlighting three stories of relevance to the Christian community, there's news out of the entertainment world relative to the LGBT agenda and the practice of the Christian faith. Also, the Alabama Supreme Court has issued a ruling stating that an unborn child is a human being. Plus, an eleventh-hour ruling out of Texas preserved the freedom of conscience for health professionals who do not wish to perform gender transition surgery.

3 - LGBT agenda alert: Burrell booted for comments on Biblical view of homosexuality; Gaines speaks out on controversy
Gospel singer Kim Burrell was scheduled to make an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show this past Thursday to perform a duet with Pharrell Williams on a song from the movie, Hidden Figures. That appearance was cancelled. Why?

Well, according to CBN News, a video surfaced of Burrell speaking at the Love & Liberty Fellowship Church. She said in her message that, "The perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women."

On Facebook Live after the video was released, Burrell "referred to unspecified "enemies" for spreading only a portion of her speech." She is quoted as saying that she has never discriminated against gays and lesbians. She said, "I love you and God loves you...But God hates the sin."

Meanwhile the views of the church attended by Fixer Upper television stars Chip and Joanna Gaines were trotted out in a BuzzFeed article over a month ago. According to Faithwire, in a blog post, Chip was more direct about the controversy than he had been in some previous tweets. The article states that:

Chip wrote that he and his wife wouldn’t be baited, encouraged people to extend love to their ideological opponents and implored readers to reject the “lie” that disagreement is “the same thing as hate.”

He wrote, "This past year has been tough. In my lifetime, I can’t recall humanity being more divided,” adding, "Plenty of folks are sad and scared and angry and there are sound bites being fed to us that seem fueled by judgement, fear and even hatred.”

2 - In a ruling AL Supreme Court justices uphold humanity of unborn children
In a case before the Alabama Supreme Court called, Stinnett v. Kennedy, the high court, in a unanimous decision, said that the case can proceed, stating that unborn children are human beings and are entitled to legal protection, according to a press release found on the Liberty Counselwebsite. The case is a wrongful death lawsuit, and the Supreme Court found that a lower court made an error by "dismissing Alabama resident Kimberly Stinett’s claim alleging the wrongful death of her unborn baby and granting summary judgement in favor of Karla Kennedy, M.D., on lack-of-proof-causation grounds."

The Liberty Counsel release said that the high court "largely based its decision on an amendment in Alabama’s Homicide Act, which “changed the definition of a ‘person’ who could be a victim of homicide to include ‘an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.”

In a concurring opinion, Associate Justice Tom Parker wrote, "Unborn children, whether they have reached the ability to survive outside their mother’s womb or not, are human beings and thus persons entitled to the protections of the law—both civil and criminal. Members of the judicial branch of Alabama should do all within their power to dutifully ensure that the laws of Alabama are applied equally to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, both born and unborn."1 - Court halts government mandate for health care professionals to perform transgender surgeries
A new government mandate was scheduled to go into effect on January 1st, but the intervention of a Texas court prevented the 362-page regulation from beginning. The Daily Signal reports that:

The court ruling came after eight states, an association of almost 18,000 doctors, and a Catholic hospital system challenged a new federal regulation that requires doctors to perform gender transition procedures on children, even if the doctor believes the treatment could harm the child.

A website has been set up about the court case, TransgenderMandate.org, and provides some research on the issue. Some of that research indicates, according to the story that "up to 94 percent of children with gender dysphoria will grow out of their dysphoria naturally and live healthy lives without the need for surgery or lifelong hormone regimens."

The Daily Signal story also pointed out that:

The government itself does not require its own military doctors to perform these procedures. It also does not require coverage of gender transition procedures in Medicare or Medicaid—even for adults—because the government medical experts that oversee those programs did not believe medical research demonstrates that gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes, with some studies demonstrating that these procedures were in fact harmful.